DFRLab

Digital Sherlocks is back 🕵️‍♀️

Applications are now open for Digital Sherlocks 2026, the DFRLab’s free online program training a global community of investigators to track, verify, and understand today’s information environment.

Across three months of live sessions, participants build real open-source investigative skills through live sessions with DFRLab experts.

Join the community and build the skills to investigate today’s information environment.

🗓 Apply by April 14, 2026 (23:59 ET)
🔗 https://bit.ly/47JLw02

Watch the Watchers 👁️ 👁️

A new report from Conexión Segura y Libre and the DFRLab reveals how surveillance technologies are used for political control in Venezuela. From AI-powered cameras to digital apps and cyberpatrolling, the system creates layered risks for activists, journalists, and everyday citizens.

🔎 Explore the report now:

Watch the Watchers: Surveillance technologies for political control in Venezuela Despite changes in leadership, Venezuela's extensive surveillance infrastructure remains fully operational.

Venezuela’s surveillance state didn’t disappear with Nicolás Maduro.

Join the Atlantic Council’s Democracy + Tech Initiative and Conexión Segura y Libre for the launch of "Watch the Watchers: Surveillance technologies for political control in Venezuela," examining the architecture of Venezuela’s surveillance system, from AI CCTV to telecom interception.

🗓 Mar 26 | 10 AM ET
Register: https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/event/how-venezuela-deploys-surveillance-to-maintain-political-control/

Still watching: How Venezuela deploys surveillance to maintain political control The Atlantic Council's Democracy + Tech Initiative and Conexión Segura y Libre present the most comprehensive analysis to date of Venezuela's massive surveillance system, which is still operational after Maduro's removal, and its implications for democratic transition.

AI, memes, and hashtags: How China is battling the US online over Venezuela 🤖 🇻🇪

Kenton Thibaut's analysis shows that Chinese state-linked social media accounts responded to the US capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro with a deliberate narrative push: casting the United States as unpredictable and destabilizing, while positioning China as a steady, responsible actor upholding the rules-based international order.

Rather than relying on traditional state messaging, these accounts engaged in memefied political dialogue, deliberately adopting an irreverent, digitally native aesthetic optimized for virality.

For China, this incident offers strategic value, strengthening the state's efforts to undermine US alliance while simultaneously self-positioning as a "responsible global power."

Read more:

AI, memes, and hashtags: How China is battling the US online over Venezuela Chinese state media and inauthentic accounts promoted narratives of US decline.